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Lost knight's tale speaks to all of us

By RAHN FORNEY

Updated:
12/28/2012 09:21:54 AM EST

For 400 years, since Jan. 6, 1605, the world has been reading the story of Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes' eccentric (deranged?) knight. The book is the second-most-translated and second-most-published tome in history, trailing only the Bible. Cervantes' imagination has provided numerous images that have survived the centuries and can still be seen in our popular culture. His work has also contributed a word to our language - quixotic - meaning idealistic and utterly impractical or marked by rash, lofty romantic ideas ... doomed to fail.

Had Cervantes not invented Quixote, someone else would have. He is as necessary and as central to humanity's core - and perhaps more so - than most garden-variety heroes we have hanging about.

And the image that perhaps best captures the sense and sensibility of Quixote is his attack against the windmills, which the ersatz knight has mistaken for giants.

Yes, we hail our heroes. But - if one bases the opinion on the sales, staying power and continued popularity of Quixote - efforts doomed to failure galvanize us even more.

There must, then, be something to be said for fighting those hopeless battles. Had Quixote been dismissed as just an unfortunate soul whose mind was overcome, his story would no longer be remembered. There aren't exactly hordes of 17th century literary favorites sitting on the shelves of your local bookstore.

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How would we remember the Alamo if those within it had recognized that they were doomed and given up their guns? They might well have been killed anyway, but the choice made to stand and fight is what we honor today.

There is a place for idealism in our society. There has been for centuries. There will be for centuries more. The wit-dulling consensus-building that drives most of our decision-making has to be given free rein occasionally.

We all have a personal world view, a sense of what-should-be juxtaposed with the world's what-is. In most instances, there is a synergy between the two; where there isn't, there is conflict. It is within those areas of conflict, not in those areas of agreement, that we truly define ourselves as individuals.

The irony here -which Cervantes depicted so remarkably well - is that to those with their own world-view, another individual's chosen battles may well resemble attacks on windmills by nag-riding, cardboard-helmeted faux knights. They don't resemble rational acts. They are, well, quixotic.

But we need to fight these battles. Some of us don't fight very many; some of us are quite more pugnacious about it. And just once in a while, perhaps as often as a would-be knight's giant turns out to really be a giant, and not just a windmill, we can find a doomed battle that actually turns out to be winnable. It's that mad chance, that sense of victory swept from defeat's claws, that brings about such battles in the first place.

We don't have to always compromise to get along in the world. To go over the top is to be viewed as Quixote was viewed. But we can choose our quiet battles and take our stands, climb aboard our own Rosinantes, put colanders on our heads and rage against whatever titanic machines we target. We can't expect to win, but we can't not fight. It's human nature, and it's been illustrated to us in the form of Quixote for centuries.

A little more idealism, however fantastic, with a corresponding drop in the level of cynical pragmatism, might give rise to a slightly better society. Or, that idea could be just another of Quixote's windmills, and pursuing such a thought might be nothing more than quixotic -though no less necessary for it.

Forney is the editorial-page editor for the Lebanon Daily News. He can be reached at: rahnforney@ldnews.com